Iran’s minorities have called on Washington to be concerned about its own poor human rights record at home and abroad instead of shedding “crocodile tears” for others. Iran’s Assyro-Chaldean churches also censured US officials’ “interventionist” claims about the situation of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has reiterated, “The preeminent late Imam [Khomeini] had also forbidden talks with the US until this regime mends its ways and we also emphasize this point.”